Group appeals Medicaid freeze ruling

The Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest is asking the Arizona Court of Appeals to overturn a lower court ruling that upheld the constitutionality of recent cuts to the state’s Medicaid program.

Attorney Tim Hogan filed a petition for special action today to overturn the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System’s enrollment freeze for childless adults. He believes the cuts violate Proposition 204, a 2000 ballot measure that expanded AHCCCS coverage to include childless adults, and the Voter Protection Act.

A three-judge panel will consider the petition Sept. 14.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Mark Brain ruled on Aug. 10 that Prop. 204 does not require the Legislature to appropriate additional funds for AHCCCS. But Hogan argued in the appeal that Brain should have ruled based on the plain language of the ballot measure, which prohibits the state from establishing a cap on AHCCCS enrollment and requires the Legislature to use “available funds” to provide coverage to all people who earn up to 100 percent of the federal poverty level.

Hogan said Brain should have addressed the dispute over what “available funds” means. Instead, the judge ruled that neither voters nor the court could force the Legislature to make the appropriation, while noting that the freeze “would likely be unconstitutional if the Voter Protection Act existed in a vacuum.”

“The Legislature used the appropriation process to ensure that there would not be sufficient funds to extend coverage to those individuals. This is precisely the type of abuse that led the enactment of the Voter Protection Act,” Hogan wrote. “The plain language of Proposition 204, duly enacted by the voters of Arizona, makes it clear that the state is obligated to provide health care benefits to all individuals with incomes at or below the federal poverty level.”

Hogan also argued that Brain’s ruling was “arbitrary and capricious,” and that he failed to recognize that the Legislature’s actions were an unconstitutional attempt to amend the statutes enacted by Prop. 204.

“It is true that the Voter Protection Act does not require the legislature to provide supplemental funding,” Hogan wrote. “The voter-approved statute does that! What the Voter Protection Act prohibits is the repeal or amendment of that statute by the legislature.”